Before things really got going at the NAFB convention this week agricultural advertising agency, AdFarm, held an open house at their new office location. Here’s the welcoming committee downstairs at the old Western Union building.
Dinging Your Way To Your Customers
At the NAMA Agribusiness Forum it was interesting to see a presentation on customer focused marketing from a very non-ag company. Southwest Airlines started Ding earlier this year as a way to interact very closely with their customers. Jill Howard-Allen had quite a few questions after her presentation. I think that people found her presentation to be very different than what they expected.
I don’t know if you Ding or not but I interviewed Jill and asked her about why Southwest Airlines, uh, Dings. You can listen to my interview with Jill here: Jill Howard-Allen Interview
Painting New Holland Blue On The Barn
Here’s your exclusive first look/listen to a “new” New Holland promotion involving country music star Michael Peterson. It’s just being announced this week at the NAFB Convention. Basically, Michael Peterson is coming out with a new album that New Holland dealers will have the exclusive rights to sell prior to any other retail outlets.
On the album is a song titled, “Down On The Farm,” in which the lyrics contain the phrase, “. . . painting New Holland blue on the barn.” You can hear a clip from the song here: 
Michael will be here in Kansas City this week and I’ll be interviewing him about the new promotion with New Holland and have it for you here on AgWired soon.
AgWired Sponsoring NAMA Blog
You can see a lot more of what was happening today on the NAMA Agribusiness Forum blog at www.namaconnect.org. AgWired is sponsoring and posting.
NAMA Reception Putt Putt Results
At the NAMA Agribusiness Forum the evening reception featured putt-putt golf. My team (Monte Reese, Steve Taylor and Judi Lampe) were the Earthly Beef and seen listed here in the winners position. That is until they started this thing about letting people buy points to add to other teams scores. When it was all over with we lost first place. I just think this is unfair. We won it fair and square on the field where it counts! So there. Anyway it was all in fun for a good cause.
I’ll let you figure out why we were called the Earthly Beef. Hint: (Monte & Steve work for beef organizations and Judi works for Mother Earth News).
NAMA Board Meeting Underway
The NAMA board is meeting just prior to the Agribusiness Forum kickoff session.
I’m sure they’re discussing serious matters of national importance.
Missouri Sunrise On The Way To KC
The sky was on fire this morning looking to the east, toward Kansas City. I thought you might enjoy this picture. It’ll help set the stage for a lot more to come from the NAMA Agribusiness Forum and NAFB Convention.
I’m actually checked in and getting ready to wander around.
Farm Policy Developments Center On Congressional Budget Action & Trade Talks
Developments in U.S. farm policy this week included important legislative action in Congress, as well as a trip to Latin America by President Bush.
The Senate on Thursday passed a five-year budget reduction bill by a vote of 52 to 47.
The legislation, which is slated to garner budget saving of $35 billion, contained approximately $3 billion in cuts to agricultural programs.
An amendment offered during the debate which sought to cap farm payments from $360,000 to $250,000, was defeated on a procedural motion by a vote of 53-46.
Meanwhile, the House is expected to bring their budget savings plan to a vote on Thursday. Due to stronger political pressure exerted by conservative Republicans, the House plan seeks a more ambitious overall budget savings of $53.9 billion, including a $3.7 billion reduction in agriculture spending.
In addition to differences over spending levels on the food stamp program, the Senate bill contains a provision to extend the Milk Income Contract Loss program while the House measure does not.
In international developments, late last week President Bush traveled to Argentina to participate in the Summit of the Americas and to meet with the President of Argentina.
President Bush set out to promote the Free Trade Area of the America’s (FTAA) Trade Agreement, which according to Saturday’s Los Angeles Times, “would create a unified trade bloc from Alaska to the southern tip of Argentina and Chile.”
However the issue of U.S. agricultural subsidies put a frosty chill on the talks.
On Sunday, the Los Angeles Times reported that, “Representatives of Argentina and Brazil, the continent’s major agricultural producers, insisted that they favored the concept of economic integration. But they said they feared that their products could not easily compete with heavily subsidized U.S. foodstuffs.”
And, according to Monday’s Wall Street Journal, repercussions could spread. “The failure of the Western Hemispheric summit could make it more difficult for the U.S. to gather support for the Doha Round, and could embolden other countries to make more demands in those talks.”
Keith Good writes The FarmPolicy.com News Summary, an Email newsletter containing a summary of news relating to U.S. farm policy which is published most weekdays. To sign up for this FREE publication, just send an Email to this address.
D&PL Opens New Greenhouse Facility
Delta and Pine Land just built some new homes for plants (greenhouses) and it looks like they’ve designed them to manage separation since we wouldn’t want to mix up the whole trait thing. I want to know what “introgression” means though. It’s just a little too early in the morning for me to handle a word that big.
Delta and Pine Land Company, the nation’s leading developer and marketer of cotton seed, announced the completion of new greenhouse facilities. The new greenhouses are located in Winterville, MS – just a few miles from D&PL’s headquarters in Scott.
“We have an aggressive research effort that focuses our 11 breeding programs on making progress in yield and quality,” according to D&PL President and CEO Tom Jagodinski. “These greenhouses will be a part of the introgression effort that couples those superior varieties with new technologies.” The company’s technology strategy includes several suppliers which places a premium on physical separation of traits and plants. D&PL currently works with transgenic technologies from Monsanto, Syngenta, Dow and DeltaMax. DeltaMax is a joint venture with DuPont and its Pioneer subsidiary focusing on the development of herbicide tolerance and insect resistance technology in cotton.
The new houses measure 23,000 square feet and became home to plants for the first time Friday.
ABG, Inc. & Adayana Announce Merger
ABG, Inc. agrees to merge with Adayana. The company will provide customized training that’s so badly needed in companies today. I can vouch for that. Even here at ZimmComm, as we grow we know how difficult it’s going to be to find people who have the training needed to deal with the new high tech, agwired world.
ABG, Inc., and the food and agriculture division of Adayana today announced the two companies have finalized an agreement to merge. The combined organization will be known as ABG, an Adayana company.
“With the many advances in technology and the ever-increasing demand for learning to be delivered anytime, any place and in many languages, the merger of ABG and Adayana will allow us to provide clients with a more robust offering of products and services,” says Mike Jackson, CEO and president of ABG. “ABG’s strengths in strategic consulting, market research and training and development are complemented by Adayana’s understanding of and technical expertise in the area of distance and e-Learning.
ABG, an Adayana company, will be headquartered in Indianapolis. Mike Jackson has been named CEO and president. Planning is underway to facilitate a seamless transition for both clients and employees.